SALAMANCA — Margaret Fisher and Timothy Jackson have had a special bond for 45 years, ever since he dove into a river and pulled her body out of an overturned car in the Allegheny River and used CPR to breathe life back into her.
On May 12, Jackson — who was a 28-year-old Salamanca patrolman when the pair crossed paths — was among those attending Fisher’s 100th birthday in Bradford, Pa. Family members from California, Virginia and Maryland also attended.
Jackson, a retired state trooper and now Salamanca town supervisor, received a gift from Margaret at her birthday party earlier this month.
It was the framed license plate from the Mustang she was driving in Salamanca when the car went through the Clinton Street Bridge rail into the river about 9 p.m. on Nov. 6, 1973.
“How she got it and kept it all of these years is beyond me,” Jackson said of the license plate. Around the license plate are the names of family — sons, daughters, grandkids and great-grandkids.
On May 14, Margaret left her Bradford home for an assisted living home near her son in Maryland, in what she said is a temporary move.
At the birthday party, Jackson told her that while her birth certificate said she was 100, she’s still only 45 to him. He said the fact that she’s 100 and “still sharp and able to get around is quite amazing.”
As Jackson recounts: “On a freezing winter night in November 1973, I gave her life back to her.
“That night she was visiting her ailing father-in-law at the Salamanca Hospital. The temperature was below freezing and the roadway was covered with black ice. When she drove away from the hospital and tried to stop at the bottom of the hill at Clinton Street, she skidded through the stop sign, hit the railing on the Clinton Street bridge and drove through it landing upside down in the Allegheny River.”
Jackson got the call that night. It was 9:05 p.m. and he was on patrol on the west end of the city.
“Only God knows how long Mrs. Fisher lay trapped in her overturned car, submerged under water before I pulled her lifeless body from the wreck,” Jackson told the Olean Times Herald. “She was clinically dead when I got to her.” He estimated at least 20 minutes had past from the time the car went through the railing and he started artificial respiration and external heart massage.
This all this took place on the upside down car that was partially submerged in the river. The water was high, fast and bitterly cold. Margaret remained unconscious when she resumed breathing after about 15 minutes of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions, Jackson said.
It took nearly an hour for a boat to be launched and take them off the bottom of the car.
Margaret and Jackson were treated for exposure and frostbite at the Salamanca Hospital and Margaret was transferred to a Buffalo hospital for further care.
The two have kept in touch ever since.
Margaret has a great sense of humor, Jackson said on Thursday.
“She reminded me at her birthday party that if it wasn’t for her, I never would have received the Medal of Honor from the Salamanca Police Department,” Jackson chuckled. “It seems like only yesterday.”
In an email to the Olean Times Herald, Margaret reflected on her long friendship with Jackson.
“Wouldn’t anyone be forever grateful to the person who saved your life risking their own?” Margaret replied. “Tim was injured in the rescue and almost in worse shape than I was. His action that day brought joy to over 50 members of my family and many friends over the years. Kids and grandkids have had their grandma and great-grandma thanks to him.”
Writing on her iPad from Maryland, Margaret recalled: “After returning home to Bradford from the hospital in Buffalo my husband and I went to Salamanca to look at the car. This was about two weeks after the accident. My car had been badly damaged. It was a brand new Mustang and I loved it. After it was pulled out of the river it was left in a parking area in Salamanca.”
She said, the top was “flattened to the level of the doors” by the accident.
“I started to cry. I asked my husband to take off the license plate, which he did. It was bent and dirty with mud but I wanted to keep it as a remembrance of my new car and my new life.”
Margaret said, “For 45 years I have been deeply thankful to Tim Jackson for risking his life to save mine. On every anniversary, on Nov. 6, I’ve expressed my appreciation to him and his family. What I said jokingly to him at the birthday party was ‘I appreciated what you did but why didn’t you save my new car?’ Everyone just laughed.”
Jackson, who plans to keep in touch with Margaret, noted that she still sends him a card each year on the anniversary of their first meeting, and a fruitcake at Christmas.
(Contact reporter Rick Miller at rmiller@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @RMillerOTH)
